La corte del zar rojo

In a sense, this is the first real biography of Stalin. What had been published so far was nothing more than passages from his life and time, supplemented by the history of the Soviet Union to make up for the lack of direct information on one of the world's most famous dictators. However, in this book, Simon Sebag Montefiore, who has had access to the recently opened files of Stalin and his collaborators, reveals to us an unusual, surprising Stalin. A less enigmatic, more intimate Stalin, no less brutal but more humane. And with him he introduces us to the passionate history of his imperial court, to an epic of fear and betrayal, to a world of privilege and corruption, to a life in which family love and murderous brutality were mixed. Stalin played the dangerous game of power with his courtiers during dinners and balls that took place in the impressive villas on the Black Sea and in the enormous apartments of the Kremlin: a secret but strangely warm world, populated by murderers, fanatics, degenerates and adventurers. From the bisexual dwarf Yezhov to the depraved Beria, each played a role for Stalin: Molotov the fool, Ordzhonikidze the hothead, Kaganovich the brute, Voroshilov the stupid funnyman; Mikoyan the smart one; Zhdanov the one of presumptuous. Everyone walked on a razor's edge, killing to survive, sleeping with a gun under their pillow; letting their women die at Stalin's whim or allowing their children to live by a code of lies. But they were all faithful to the quasi-religious faith of Bolshevism.